NextEra Energy says it will buy Gulf Power, Florida City Gas and interests in the Oleander and Stanton natural-gas generating plants from Southern Company for $6.475 billion, including $1.4 billion of Gulf Power debt.

NextEra's Florida utility, Florida Power & Light Co., serves nearly five million customer accounts across nearly half of the state of Florida. NextEra intends to finance the approximately $5.1 billion purchase price through the issuance of new debt.

nedxtSale proceeds are expected to be used to reduce debt and improve Southern Company's balance sheet. Southern's Georgia electric utility is building two new nuclear power plants at its Vogtle station in Georgia. The two 1,100 megawatt units will use Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors and will be adjacent to two existing reactor units at the facility.

In mid-April, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will issue combined construction and operating licenses for two proposed AP1000 reactors at Florida Power and Light's Turkey Point plant south of Miami. The utility has not yet made a final decision on whether to proceed with building the units.

Southern's Mississippi Power utility also was involved in the Kemper County clean coal project, which proved so troublesome that its novel coal gasification equipment was shut down in 2017. The plant continues to use pipeline-supplied natural gas to generate electricity. (Read "The Three Factors That Doomed Kemper County IGCC.")

Included in the Sale

Gulf Power serves approximately 450,000 customers in eight counties in northwest Florida. It has roughly 9,500 miles of power lines and 2,300 megawatts (MW) of electric generating capacity.

Gulf Power's power plants include the four unit, 970 MW coal-fired James James F. Crist generating station near Pensacola, Florida, and the two-unit, 585 MW oil and natural gas-fired Lansing Smith generating station near Panama City, Florida. It also holds a 50 percent ownership position in Mississippi Power’s 500 MW Plant Daniel, and a 25 percent interest in one unit of Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer.

Florida City Gas serves some 110,000 residential and commercial natural-gas customers in Florida's Miami-Dade, Brevard, St. Lucie and Indian River counties with 3,700 miles of natural gas pipelines.

Plant Oleander is a 791 MW natural-gas fueled, simple-cycle combustion turbine electric generation plant located near Cocoa, Florida. It has power purchase agreements with the Florida Municipal Power Agency and Seminole Electric Cooperative. The Stanton Energy Center is a 660 MW combined-cycle electric generating unit near Orlando. The 65 percent interest is contracted with the Orlando Utilities Commission and Florida Municipal Power Agency.

The acquisitions of Gulf Power and the ownership interests in the Oleander and Stanton generating plants are subject to approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and provisions of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. The Gulf Power and Plant Oleander and Plant Stanton transactions also will require approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

The target completion for the sales of Gulf Power and Southern Power's interests in Plant Stanton and Plant Oleander is the first half of 2019. The Florida City Gas transaction's target completion is third quarter 2018.